The numbers have been crunched and are here.
We took the original 2009 proposed budget for NASA and compared those numbers with the newest budget proposal.
Some highlights:
Yes, Constellation is cancelled as of…well, let’s just say, “Thank you Senator Shelby” for inserting language in the 2010 budget that will force the Obama White House to first get approval from the Chairman and Ranking Member of both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Otherwise, I’m sure many in the White House and their gang over at NASA’s headquarters would be sending out program termination notices as soon as they could log-in to their laptops.
The subsidies to “commercial” launchers are significant. The drop in the Exploration budget from canceling Constellation is not severe, it’s just that NASA is giving away $1.5 Billion or so to Blue Origin, Space Exploration and other “commercial” launchers while the rest of the piddling $100 Million is devoted to R&D for a Heavy Launcher that will have more in common with he material Unobtainium than a real rocket.
The Heavy-Lift Vehicle (HLV) program is a budgetary joke at $509 – $700 M per year starting in 2012. NASA has subsidized SpaceX at about 1/3 to 1/2 of that amount for the little Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, neither of which can launch a crew into earth orbit. So, claims by some such as Deputy Administrator Lori Garver that we could still someday make the Moon have no connection with the HLV budget R&D numbers.
For those of you who are bothered by using aviation gasoline to power your $500,000 Cirrus SR-22 GTS or kerosene for your $9 Million jet, good news! The White House wants to use the Moon funding to make greener aviation fuel.
A new budget item has been created in NASA’s budget, Construction And Environmental Compliance And Restoration and its budget goes from $448.4 M and eventually drops to $393.5 M. We will work to find out what that new line item is.
The Education budget rises from around $123.8 M to $145.8 M so that teachers all across our country can enlighten children about the human space flight exploration that was done long ago but will not be done now.
NASA’s Inspector General will see a nice jump in funding. Whoot!
More to come. In the meantime, check out the raw numbers.
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